Like Broken Glass
by pressedatropa
Summary: AU post season 2. 'It's silent - the first silence Rose has had since the beginning of January when the fragmented wolf slumbering deep in her soul, deeper than a desperate Time Lord could see, stirred and shook itself off and demanded she let it in.'


The wind is howling outside.

Rose Tyler is wrapped up in her dressing gown on the couch, gripping her tea just that much too tightly, and the telly drones on and on. She considers turning it up, pretending she can't hear the scratch scratch scratch at the door, but Andrea next door'll kick up a fuss and that's one more thing Rose just doesn't want to deal with after a long day of headaches and nausea.

The wind gets louder and the door begins to rattle under the force of it. Rose turns off the telly and closes her eyes, concentrates now. Scratch. Scratch. Scra-.

The sounds in her head stop, and the wind outside falls back to its usual hush. It's silent - the first silence Rose has had since the beginning of January when the fragmented wolf slumbering deep in her soul, deeper than a desperate Time Lord could see, stirred and shook itself off and demanded she let it in.

Rose moves through her flat on auto-pilot, finishing off her cold tea as she goes. Washing up, dressing comfortably, cleaning dishes, dumping the trash - she's done this a thousand times since she was stranded in Pete's world. Maybe this time should've been special, every move executed with finality but Rose just can't think about that now. Instead she thinks of him.

He'd wanted her to stay here. Not really, but sort of he had. He couldn't find a way to bring her back to him, and he'd told her goodbye, told her to live a good life without him. He'd almost said...

Except there was a way back, Rose knew. Deep in the back of her mind there was a way, but even while every part of her screamed that she had to get back to him, had to tell him, had to warn him- even then, Rose closed her eyes and tried to ignore it. She tried to live a good life because a good man had asked it of her and because she knew that he would never approve of what she would have to do. She could live her whole life lonely and cry whenever a Glenn Miller song came on, but it would be worth it to keep him from looking at her like she was Harriet Jones giving the order to kill. For nearly a month she looked at what the wolf tried to show her and chose to look away.

"He can handle it," she'd said one night, leaning over the bathroom sink and staring under her lashes at the mirror. Her chest had rumbled and her eyes had burned gold and Rose had slept that night remembering the feel of a warm hand in hers and loathing the phrase "Better with two."

In the morning, she'd taken one look at her stained cheeks and said only, "Find a better way." Nineteen days of resistance and she'd given in. Maybe she would have fought harder if she could have gotten her heart fully into it. Maybe.

The wind is howling outside again and Rose pauses in front of the door, thinks of Mickey and her mum, Pete, Tony, Jake. "We'll see them again," she says firmly, willing the wolf not just to hear it but to know Rose expects it to be so. Then she squares her shoulders and opens the door.

Golden wind that is but isn't there instantly rips through her like broken glass and she catches her breath, closing her eyes around the tears as the earth moves and stars die and everything ticks away and it _hurts_-

-but it'll be alright. She's strong and she'll hold. She is both messenger and warning and she knows the way, knows how to find him, and he'll know what to do after that. It's alright if she breaks just a little on the way because she knows he'll always fix her. She just has to get to him.

The wolf opens her eyes and starts walking and somewhere inside her Rose is choking on screams because each step is agony, a thousand shards digging into her feet. People are talking and then they're all running, and bloody-gold begins to drip from her ears, eyes, nose as she expends too much energy safely creating a doorway that shouldn't exist between the weakening walls of two universes.

It's hard to keep it one-way, harder still to keep it small, keep from punching a hole, and it takes so very long to coax it closed once she's through. Her body aches and bleeds from the effort but it's alright. This is necessary and the wolf doesn't care what she has to do to make it back to him. All she knows is the map in her mind and the howling that echoes through her and that she has to find him before it's too late for the warning, too late for the messenger. Too late for the Bad Wolf.

The world may be running out of time, but so is she.


End file.
